Thread: Kicked Out!

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You should be placing a call to this agents broker and possibly to TREC.

Agent should not interfere with your inspection.

Most real estate contracts state that the seller must provide access for home inspections. That would include all the doors and areas to be unlocked to do so.

Very unprofessional of an agent to treat you as so.

I would have told my client, "Wonder what they are trying to hide from the inspector?"

Robert,
I feel your pain. I think most of us have had that either happen before, or will have it happen if you are in business long enough.

Like Rick said, I would be placing some calls and report them. I hope your client runs from the house.
JF

Now to play devils advocate: .

If it was my home, I'm afraid that an all day inspection on a 3300 sf home would have gotten under my skin as well. We need not forget that we are guest in the sellers home, regardless of what a contract says or what we think. Just like a builder can let you on the property as long as you meet their requirements the same goes for the seller.

I can't say that I have ever spent all day on a 3300sf home. I did a 3000 sf with crawl space, with only a few problems in 3 hours yesterday. But if this home had so many issues that it was taking an extra long time I would have said something the first couple of hours just to alert everyone we would be camping out.

Around here, 4 hours just on the exterior, if I understood you correctly, would be out of the question on a house of this size. People start looking at their watches and making phone calls saying "yes, we're STILL at the home inspection" if I take 4 hours on the whole thing.
Not that you should have been treated that way.
Here in PA, there is a law that defines "material defects", which is what the law says the inspection is all about: "Significant" problems that effect the value of the property, or "unreasonable" risks to people on the property. In other words, not technically exhaustive. We all have inspected properties that we could spend days on, if documenting everything. The worse the property, the more I leave on the side of the road and the more I concentrate on the truly bad stuff.

I've spent two days on 3500 sf homes.

Did that for 4 years.

Paid well, too.

Guess it depends on what you have your client expect from you.

Amen Robert.

We had an agent once call TREC right in front of me complaining that we were being too through and taking up her time.

TREC told her I had no time restraints and suggested that she let me do my job.

These agents know that the deal has went sour once you've been there awhile anyway. No check at the end of the month gets on their nerves somewhat.

Sounds to me like a homeowner special that didn't want you there. I would love to have seen the sellers disclosure page.

Bet nothing you found was noted.

If they didn't have anything to hide, why question your time there?

I agree with John - 4 hours on the exterior is just way out of line. Even if the roof is a wreck and all kinds of modifications have been made - you report that the roof has significant deficiencies and recommend that a qualified licensed professional roofing contractor evaluate and repair all defiencies. Sometimes that might take about three minutes. The same with other defects - it shouldn't take 4 hours to inspect the exterior of a house that size.

Robert, you state you were paid well - were you charging by the hour or did you receive a flat fee for the inspection?

Craig Martin
East Dundee, IL

O.K. I have asked this question of others before and will continue to ask it. $500k house. 8 hour inspection plus, drive time to and from, report prep time, follow-up phone time. How much did you make?

Robert - More power to you! Just to be clear, I never said it was "out of line". I don't know where you work, but my main point was just that here in PA it wouldn't fly - I would never have any work if I did inspections at that level of detail.

[QUOTE=John Arnold;1577]Robert - More power to you! Just to be clear, I never said it was "out of line".

I did - and I'll stand by it. My point is that if the roof has obvious problems, it's simple - write it up as a significant defect, recommend that it get fixed and move on. I spend an hour to an hour and a half on a house exterior that size and I believe I do a very thorough job. Now - if Robert & Jerry's inspections are "technically exhaustive" then that's another story. But the client should know that up front - and yes, they will pay for it.

From reading this thread and others from years past, it appears that Jerry's inspection are this type. Perhaps things are different in Florida, but up here most buyers (99%) that I'm aware of don't hire an inspector for that type of inspection. 2-4 hours on site is the norm for me and most guys I know.

Craig Martin
East Dundee, IL

Robert - what happened to your posts?

Me thinks that Robert had second thoughts about posting on a public forum.

Also everyone needs to fill in your location in your Profile. It really helps when you are asking for help and to know a little about a person.

Hey, I have been asked to leave by the seller after 1 and 1/2 hours.
I was told that any "real" inspector only takes 45 minutes.
They knew this because their realative was an inspector... They gave his name and I know the guy, a realtor who asked me how to get licensed less than a year before said incident. He also continues to perform inspections for people in his office, I don't know if he has been sued yet.
I know from his reputation that the time line is about right.
You can't manage sellers expectations sometimes.
Sometimes they are just plain wrong.
Jim

The seller’s inspection I just did was an interesting experiment – there was zero time pressure, it was a block for the office, and I was not under the gun to produce the report (the seller can't review it until Monday).

As I had open time mid-week, I decided to take “as much time as I needed” and then analyze the result.

I did the inspection on two separate days: the exterior Tuesday as I knew the weather would be good, then the interior on Wednesday, so I was “fresh” for both.

The house was three story brick, built 1915, 4BR, 2-1.2 baths, addition at rear, full basement under the main house, crawl under the addition, multiple layers of extensive updating and lots of deferred maintenance – in short, a “typical” older home in my area, but one where there were likely to be issues both major and minor.

Normally, on a buyer’s inspection, I would expect to spend 3.5-4 hours on this house and garage.

Over two days, I spent 8 hours: 2.0 on the exterior and garage, 6.0 hours on the interior.

The major significant difference was that I spent considerably more time in the attic and basement/crawl than I would have otherwise, and in both cases I caught things I might have missed otherwise.

Typical examples were a bathroom vent into a soffit spotted because an inch or two of it was *just* visible above the similarly colored mineral wool insulation before it dived back down again, an abandoned trap left in place up against the basement ceiling - it was capped but there was an open tee in the line at a difficult location to observe - and a skinned (down to the metal) conductor buried deep in the service panel.

I can’t say that I *would* have missed any of these had I had less time, but I *might* have missed one or more.

OTOH the rest of the interior inspection turned up little of real significance I think I might otherwise have overlooked.

The moral, I suspect, is that there may be a bit of a conflict between “inspection to limit liability” and “inspection for immediate customer satisfaction” – finding a skinned wire or a vent into the attic from a bath with a shower does more to limit your liability (and protect your client) from the results of accident or significant damage, OTOH your average client may be more impressed by your “thoroughness” if you identify lots of cracked window glass or closet doors that latch with difficulty.

Given that my inspections are already on the “long side", what will change as a result of of this "experiment" is that I will try even harder to educate my clients to understand that I am there to hunt for the “big game”, and tilt my inspection time a bit more toward attics, basements and crawls.

Now if I could just get a few Jerry Pecks, Jeff Popes and the like follow me on this one, and discover what I missed….

Robert

"strategy" ?

I can't understand what you mean. Where was your strategy to the point that you had to go and delete your posts.

Originally Posted by John Ghent

O.K. I have asked this question of others before and will continue to ask it. $500k house. 8 hour inspection plus, drive time to and from, report prep time, follow-up phone time. How much did you make?

Valid question if the inspection cost is $500.

Meaningless if the inspection cost is $5,000.

I don't know that Robert would want to state what the inspection fee was, but he might.

I've had single family inspection fees which were well over $10,000, was it worth the time? You bet it was.

Jerry, folks also need to also understand that you were inspecting some the most expensive real estate in the country. A 3,500sf home in the area you use to work could sell for a cool million dollars or so if not better. In many areas a 3,500sf home will sell for a few hundred thousand dollars.

Pricing of home inspections is relative to the area and market. What works in Ft.Lauderdale, FL will not work in Galveston, TX yet they are both on the water. But then what works in Ft. Lauderdale might work in Miami or Seaside FL.

I didn't get to read Robert's initial post so I don't know exactly what the issues and concerns are. I sure wish people wouldn't delete their posts except under extenuating circumstances.

DITTO

Brian help us out.

Originally Posted by Scott Patterson

But then what works in Ft. Lauderdale might work in Miami or Seaside FL.

Scott,

It worked for me all along about 180 miles of coastline, of course, though, as you pointed out, that was South Florida coastline.

My point to John was that he always asked 'was it worth it' and 'but how much did you make', simply because someone spends a lot of time on an inspection, yet 'spending a lot of time' is not the key factor, pricing your services is. Heck, you could do 10 a day for $100 each and John's question would be MORE appropriate there. ALL THAT LIABILITY (10 per day) for a lousy thousand bucks?

Robert had already said he was well paid for it. That should have answered it right there.

Then again, Robert has also deleted most of those posts, for whatever reason he has.

Robert, you can do as you please but this thread is pretty much meaningless at this point after deletion of the post that got it all started. This whole thread should be deleted now. It's like tearing the first chapter out of a book and reading the rest.

I personally didn't recall any allusions to strategy in the originating post but that's just me.

Folks called me to inspect what Jerry missed...they said it was $10,000 wasted...I charged $500...I married their daughter....we are both now pregnant...

Huh??

Originally Posted by dick whitfield

Folks called me to inspect what Jerry missed...they said it was $10,000 wasted...I charged $500...I married their daughter....we are both now pregnant...

I suspect that the only thing close to being true in the above statement is that you are pregnant!

Thats not there daughter, there son just dresses funny. Pregnant, probably just gas

That's Jerry's daughter. For ten grand he got a bonus also.

Originally Posted by Mike Schulz

Thats not there daughter, there son just dresses funny. Pregnant, probably just gas

That baby ought to be a cute little turd then.

Not sure about the cute part...

RR

Folks called me to inspect what Jerry missed...they said it was $10,000 wasted...I charged $500...I married their daughter....we are both now pregnant...

I guess you'll be reading the little one..."Twas the code before Christmas..."